Balmorality

The only mention of Her Majesty I have seen on the court circular recently is the terse announcement that Alex Salmond and his wife have “left the castle”. The castle in question is, of course, Balmoral, where the Queen, her family and friends traditionally spend early autumn. I think the house, first acquired by Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert, is pretty hideous – Gothick, cold, full of tartan and antlers - though it is in glorious country in the Dee Valley. I’d rather be in the nearby Birkhall. Prince Charles’s Scottish residence, which is less austere and grand. It was at Balmoral that the Royal family heard news of the death of Princess Diana, which was the subject of the film The Queen, in which Helen Mirren was so convincing. The Scottish sojourn is a sort of working holiday with mildly stilted picnics on the estate, deer-stalking, shooting, reeling and watching various locals do obscure Scottish things involving bagpipes and telegraph poles aka cabers. Because the Queen never really takes time off from the duties of monarchy the Castle is nearly always full of official guests such as the Salmonds (he is the Scottish first minister in the de-centralised United Kingdom). Most of these guests, unused to grand highland life, have an uncomfortable time – not least because everything goes without saying. This is common practice in royal circles and leads to all sorts of misunderstandings. I particularly remember a former equerry who should have known his way around but who committed an appalling gaffe after dinner one night. Seeking to distance himself from the royal males who were having an obscure and daunting conversation about wild animals and the Queen who was playing patience, he sat in an unoccupied chair half way between the two. After a while he was aware that Her Majesty was looking at him in an odd manner. She beckoned him over, explained the rules of patience and then made her excuses and retired to bed. The next morning the former equerry bumped into the Private Secretary who upbraided him. “You sat in the chair”, he said. “Nobody sits in that chair. That was Queen Victoria’s favourite chair. No one but no one has sat in it since she died.” “But no one told me,” my man protested. No matter. He was supposed to have known better. One is. One frequently doesn’t and that leads to social disasters such as this. Even worse, somehow, for Sassenachs north of the border. I have a theory that many of the Royal family’s problems stem from not explaining the rules to the rest of us. Return to the Expat front page